DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) by DeepSeek or Qwen3.8 Max (0902) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) scores 36.9 points higher (45.4 vs 8.5) but costs 195× as much to run the benchmark ($4935 vs $25.4; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when you need intelligence above 8.5, and DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) when 8.5 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 8.5 | 45.4 | +434.1% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 5.3× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $25.37 | $4,934.79 | +19351.3% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 195× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.84s | 64.05s | +441.0% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 441.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.32 / $0.89 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24): 434.1% more intelligence, 19351.3% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 441.0% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24)Qwen3.8 Max (0902)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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